Improvement of Synthesis Parameters of Two-Dimensional MXene Ti3C2TX Nanoparticles Using Combined Mechanical and Chemical Mill

In this paper, Ti3C2TX (Mxene) was produced using 40% hydrofluoric acid (HF) from a precursor of Ti3AlC2. The Ti3AlC2 Max phase was synthesized by the mechanical method and then placed in a high-temperature furnace. To this aim, titanium carbide (TiC), titanium (Ti) and aluminum (Al) with atomic ratio of 2:1:1 were used due to the low heat capacity to increase the purity of Ti3AlC2. The parameter of different hours of ball milling was studied. To investigate the effect of different milling time on Ti3AlC2, and synthesis of Ti3C2TX, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, were used. The results showed that changing the milling time significantly affected the synthesis quality of the Ti3AlC2 sample. After 9 h milling, the particle size was < 38 μm and in the X-ray diffraction spectrum, all the peaks of the sample were formed according to its standard pattern, and the peak (002) is located at 2𝜃 = 9.14 degrees, which is the main peak indicates the best quality of Ti3AlC2. Also, the structural and morphological analysis results showed that Ti3C2TX MXene was produced in an entirely layered structure, and due to etching, the interlayer distance increased from 0.968nm to 1.019nm. It can be expressed that due to the change of 2𝜃 = 9.14 for the Ti3AlC2 to 2𝜃 = 8.67 for the Ti3C2TX MXene was synthesized with good quality.